Lamb
At Valley Farms Lamb, we raise lambs with a focus on high animal welfare. Our lambs are raised on pasture - grass fed and grass finished.
Our lambs are processed at a USDA facility close to us (only about 15 minutes away), so you can rest assured that lambs are minimally stressed during travel and butchered humanely.
Our lambs are processed at a USDA facility close to us (only about 15 minutes away), so you can rest assured that lambs are minimally stressed during travel and butchered humanely.
Photo Source: American Lamb Board
How we raise our lambs
What we put into our lamb starts way before they are ready to start eating food themselves. We begin thinking about doing the best for our lambs beginning at conception. Our ewes (momma sheep) and rams (dads) are prepped for breeding by being put on a higher plane of nutrition -- usually pasture if available and field dried whole corn kernals. By doing this, it ensures that the ewes will be able to maintain their pregnancy and provide extra nutrition to their lambs.
The ewes are then pulled off of pasture their last month of pregnancy and we then hand feed each ewe to know for sure her nutritional requirements are being met. This also allows us to monitor each momma as she nears her due date so we can watching for pending signs of labor and help her give birth, if needed.
When lambs are born, we weigh them, dip their umbilical cord in iodine to prevent infections, and we identify them so we can tell everybody a part. We also make sure they have had their first drink of their mom's creamy first milk, called colostrum. This further protects the lambs by providing them with vital antibodies which helps keep the lambs healthy.
As lambs are growing up, they have fun with their peers, often playing king of the hill or racing around wildly and bouncing and jumping everywhere as their moms carefully watch them.
We wean the lambs when they are about two months old so that way their moms can dry up their milk and regain weight that was lost from nursing their lambs. The lambs are big now and were not drinking much milk now anyway -- their main source of nutrition was their hay, corn, and soybean meal. They will continue to stay on this diet as it is all they've known and it helps to reduce confusion and stress and they now live independently from their moms.
When lambs have reached their best potential for producing the perfect meat, we then take them to the butcher to harvest them at the best time and most importantly, humanely.
The ewes are then pulled off of pasture their last month of pregnancy and we then hand feed each ewe to know for sure her nutritional requirements are being met. This also allows us to monitor each momma as she nears her due date so we can watching for pending signs of labor and help her give birth, if needed.
When lambs are born, we weigh them, dip their umbilical cord in iodine to prevent infections, and we identify them so we can tell everybody a part. We also make sure they have had their first drink of their mom's creamy first milk, called colostrum. This further protects the lambs by providing them with vital antibodies which helps keep the lambs healthy.
As lambs are growing up, they have fun with their peers, often playing king of the hill or racing around wildly and bouncing and jumping everywhere as their moms carefully watch them.
We wean the lambs when they are about two months old so that way their moms can dry up their milk and regain weight that was lost from nursing their lambs. The lambs are big now and were not drinking much milk now anyway -- their main source of nutrition was their hay, corn, and soybean meal. They will continue to stay on this diet as it is all they've known and it helps to reduce confusion and stress and they now live independently from their moms.
When lambs have reached their best potential for producing the perfect meat, we then take them to the butcher to harvest them at the best time and most importantly, humanely.